Evolution in culture

From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Subject: Re: Random Pondering
Date: 10 Apr 1995 09:48:38 GMT


>>
>>And doesn't the idea of memetics itself rate as a fairly reasonable
>>meme complex? Ok, it doesn't seem to be propogating much, but it
>>certainly isn't dying out.
>This is certainly true.  I think that the idea seems to be propogating
>rather well, myself.


I can testify to this. I've been following the spreading of links to my own
homepage, "The Origins of Knowledge" over the web and it's been fascinating to
see how I am more frequently referred to as a memeticist despite the fact that
I myself have never termed myself as such. In fact, none of my essay titles carry
the term "meme" or "memetics" within them. Only at three different locations in
my 200,000 bytes of text do I briefly refer to memetics.



Onar.

From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Subject: Re: Random Pondering/evolution in culture is unknown
Date: 12 Apr 1995 23:19:57 GMT


>That's true: I have listed your pages under memetics, because mirroring is
>the way how humans map relations in the 'outer world'. It is a part of
>memetics therefore.

Don't worry! I have now irreversibly justified any "memetics" link to my homepage
by writing my first article explicitly on memetics (The magic mirrorhouse). But
don't get me wrong, I wasn't implying that I'm not into memetics. I was just
noting that despite not having advertised as a memetician I've been classified as
such. I think this reflects that we memeticians are agressively infected by the
meta-meme, memetics itself. We are therefore agressive in our spreading of the
meme. I think my homepage is equally much about biology, complexity and 
epistemology, but there are fewer links under these classes than under memetics.



>I think that memetics is the science of replicators in cultural evoolution,
>but the basic core of evolutionary thinking is not far in human sciences. In
>fact, issues that are normally seen in biology as peaces of the Darweinian
>theories, are in human sciences not seen as such. The evolutionary paradigm is
>unknown to those that use it.
>I think however that a better understanding is possible with the explicit
>awareness of the core of these ideas, but of course I am biased, being a
>biologist.......

I'm biologically biased too, you know that! But I don't think memetics stands a
chance without sociology. After all memes can only exist in a social sphere. In
"the magic mirrohouse" I criticize memetics for not being rigid enough. You as a
biologist should be the first to recognize this. Darwin didn't build his theory
of evolution solely on the theory of natural selection. In fact, he did the
opposite. He used existing paleontological data, phylogeny, taxonomy and geology 
to prove that evolution had indeed occured. *Then* he went on to propose a
mechanism for the process. His idea didn't reach full acceptance before a final
methodological framework was constructed: genetics. In other words, it took a
long, long time before the underlying systemic concepts of selection were
established as science. Therefore memetics cannot jump right into the scene of 
social evolution with a set of biological concepts and expect to be heard. In
order for memetics to win forth memeticians need to do as Darwin: build on
existing data and frameworks in the field. (Remember, much of Darwin's evidential
material was collected by creationists.) I think the magic mirrorhouse yields a
wonderful opportunity to study cultural evolution with computer models, and then
couple the results with data from biology and sociology.



Onar.

From: hanss@tudelft.nl (Hans-Cees Speel)
Subject: Re: Random Pondering/evolution in culture is unknown
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 10:15:49 GMT

In article <3mhn6t$q6v@ratatosk.uninett.no> onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes:
>From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
>Subject: Re: Random Pondering/evolution in culture is unknown
>Date: 12 Apr 1995 23:19:57 GMT

>>I think that memetics is the science of replicators in cultural evoolution,
>>but the basic core of evolutionary thinking is not far in human sciences. In
>>fact, issues that are normally seen in biology as peaces of the Darweinian
>>theories, are in human sciences not seen as such. The evolutionary paradigm is
>>unknown to those that use it.
>>I think however that a better understanding is possible with the explicit
>>awareness of the core of these ideas, but of course I am biased, being a
>>biologist.......

>I'm biologically biased too, you know that! But I don't think memetics stands a
>chance without sociology. After all memes can only exist in a social sphere.

I do not mean to say that cultural evolution is only biological, only that the 
biological underlies cultural processes. By this I mean that humans are 
constrained in the way they think and reason by the biological thinking 
processes in their brain. I simply mean that knowledge in any individual in 
bounded by the way an individual reaosns and the limits to the total amount of 
knowledge he can handle. We can only think one or to things at the time, and 
time is limited. Also people are often psychological constraint to a few kinds 
of reasoning. They can learn others, but don't .
Further I see evolutionary thought as constituted by the meta-memes of 
variation-generation, selection of modes of thought by the niche people are in 
[government, business, law systems, etc] and this yields the metaphors they 
use, etc. The third evolutionary part is replication, but biased replication. 
It is biased by the niche they are in [if their thinking and acting is 
accepted by others in the niche that can affect them] and by their own thought 
[you need words and metaphors to be able to think in certain ways in the forst 
place].  


 In
>"the magic mirrohouse" I criticize memetics for not being rigid enough. You as a
>biologist should be the first to recognize this. Darwin didn't build his theory
>of evolution solely on the theory of natural selection. In fact, he did the
>opposite. He used existing paleontological data, phylogeny, taxonomy and geology
>to prove that evolution had indeed occured.

The evidence is there in cultural evolution. We have closed systems of thought 
in disciplines, certain kinds of social systems [businesses, govenrment, 
universities, etc] with different values to what is good, acceptable, 
important etc.

 *Then* he went on to propose a
>mechanism for the process.

The mechanisms are in the individual [what does it think] and in the social 
structure on which the individual reflects.

 His idea didn't reach full acceptance before a final
>methodological framework was constructed: genetics. In other words, it took a
>long, long time before the underlying systemic concepts of selection were
>established as science. Therefore memetics cannot jump right into the scene of
>social evolution with a set of biological concepts and expect to be heard. In
>order for memetics to win forth memeticians need to do as Darwin: build on
>existing data and frameworks in the field. (Remember, much of Darwin's evidential
>material was collected by creationists.) I think the magic mirrorhouse yields a
>wonderful opportunity to study cultural evolution with computer models, and then
>couple the results with data from biology and sociology.

I fully agree.

Hans-Cees



>Onar.